There are 25 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1. OT: coins and currency
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
2. Re: Reflexive encoded by case-stacking?
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
3. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
4. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
5. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
6. Re: coins and currency
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
7. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
8. Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
9. Re: coins and currency
From: Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
10. Re: OT: coins and currency
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
11. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: Thomas Hart Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
12. Re: OT: coins and currency
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
13. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
14. Re: coins and currency
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
15. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
16. Re: Is there a World-Design mailing list?
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
17. Re: OT coins and currency
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
18. Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
19. Code-switching (within a sentence) between a Conlang and a Natlang or
other Conlang.
From: Thomas Hart Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
20. coins and currency
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
21. Re: coins and currency
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
22. Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
23. Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
From: wayne chevrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
24. Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
25. Re: coins and currency
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Message: 1
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 16:37:24 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: OT: coins and currency
Hi!
>...
> I too was disappointed at the time. 'ecu' was IMO better, tho I can
> see the pesky "c" causing problems as over in central Europe it is
> likely to be pronounce [etsu] and if one Turkey became a member of the
> EU and adopted the common currency, I suppose it would get pronounced
> [edZu] :)
>...
I liked 'euro' better because Germans insisted on pronouncing 'ecu' as
[?e:'ky:], like French. 'euro' has the German pronunciation
['?OYRo:], so I like it better.
Only 'cent' is still suboptimal since there's no agreement on whether
it is [sEnt] or [tsEnt]. 'Zent' would have been a good German word.
**Henrik
PS: Please remember marking OT threads OT for people to be able
to filter them.
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Message: 2
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 17:11:01 +0100
From: Jörg Rhiemeier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Reflexive encoded by case-stacking?
Hallo!
Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Does any conlang (or natlang) encode reflexives by adding two
> case-endings? E.g.
>
> nominative: -as
> accusative: -or
>
> Assuming SOV:
>
> 'Peter loves Mary' = 'Peteras Maryor love.'
> 'Peter loves himself' = 'Peterasor love.'
> or 'Peteroras love.'
Never seen that kind of marking, but I once had the idea of a
reflexive *case* (actually used it in a conlang which I aborted,
however, when I put the whole con-universe it was to be spoken
in on indefinite hold).
Greetings,
Jörg.
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Message: 3
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 11:01:40 -0500
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
Tristan McLeay wrote:
>
> Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> > of coins (and keep in mind that $.25 is the largest
> > common coin in the US). Not to mention ridiculously
> > large numbers of low-denomination bills like 1's and 5's.
> > I try to avoid having more than 4 pennies ($.01), 1 nickle
> > ($.05), 2 dimes ($.10) or 3 quarters ($.25), likewise,
>
> Does anyone know why American coins have names? It's
> always struck me as very odd.
Why odd? They're easier to say in conversation. What would
you call them? (Note that penny and nickel are not official
terms.)
> > Yeah, from what I've read of polymer notes, I wish the US
> > would do that, too. But, there's enough complaints about
> > the minimal amount of color recently added that I'm not
> > holding my breath on a rational currency any time soon ...
>
> You're kidding me! What on earth can people have against
> having color in notes?? Aren't your notes all about the same
> size, too? That must make it very annoying being a cashier
> (at least before the added color), you'd have to read every
> single note for its value. I barely glance at them: pink=$5,
> blue=$10, red=$20, yellow=$50 and green=$100, growing
> in size.
That's essentially the reason the government gives for not
having colored bills. If people barely glanced at them, it would
be easier to pass counterfiets. In reality, it's easy to see the
large numbers in the corners of each note. I can count through
a stack of US bills very quickly.
Frankly I like having the bills the same size. Makes a nice
and neat stack. I think most Americans find it odd that so
many world currencies have different sized notes for each
denomination. I can just see a small bill becoming lost
between two larger bills if they were of different sizes.
There is no dispute that the United States has very ugly
currency. Canada has essentially the same system, but
they have much more attractive notes.
--Ph. D.
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Message: 4
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 11:12:26 -0500
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
Tristan McLeay wrote:
>
> Nik Taylor wrote:
> >
> > But, there's enough complaints about the minimal
> > amount of color recently added that I'm not holding
> > my breath on a rational currency any time soon ...
>
> You're kidding me! What on earth can people have
> against having color in notes??
You'd have to see the new twenty-dollar note. They
added a slight pink background in the middle of the
front of the note changing to light green at the left and
right with a light picture of an eagle and the words
"TWENTY USA" in blue. The colors are very light,
and the effect is just to clutter up the note. On the back,
they added a random pattern of "20"s in 6 pt. in some
kind of urine yellow color. It's really ugly.
--Ph. D.
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Message: 5
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 16:24:45 +0100
From: Benct Philip Jonsson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
Ph.D. skrev:
> Frankly I like having the bills the same size. Makes a nice
> and neat stack. I think most Americans find it odd that so
> many world currencies have different sized notes for each
> denomination. I can just see a small bill becoming lost
> between two larger bills if they were of different sizes.
Actually I often find 20 crowns bills "lost" within a bunch
of 100 crowns bills, but that's something I can live with.
I surely wouldn't like all the bills to be the same size.
FWIW I often find 20 crowns bills lost among cash receipts
and other paper debris in my wallet, so it's not all dependent
on size or color.
--
/BP 8^)>
--
Benct Philip Jonsson -- melroch at melroch dot se
Solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant!
(Tacitus)
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Message: 6
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 12:19:27 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency
On 1/7/06, Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> I read "nearest" as "next", which actually made fairly decent sense in
> context
And of course, the two words are etymologically identical, so that was
no error at all - at least not synchronically. ;-)
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 7
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 12:22:47 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
> Yes, linguists writing in English use "numeral" to mean
> "words for numbers", to distinguish from "number" usually short for
> "grammatical number" (singular, plural, etc.)
Well, I didn't know about that usage. Of course, I'm not an actual
linguist. Dadgum linguists - always messin up language. Say
they're just being descriptive, but at the same time they're modifying
whatever language they're doing their describing in. :)
> "Both" is to "two" as "???" is to "three", and so on.
> In some English writing from the 19th and early 20th
> centuries, "both" is used to mean "all three of", as well as "all two
> of".
> Might a series meaning
> "all two of" (both), "all three of", ..., "all n of", ...
> be useful? How much of this series is attested in natlangs?
I don't know the answer. It would seem to have limited utility; the
exact value of n in "all n of" seems less important, in general, than
the fact that it's "all" of the items under discussion.
Also, you asked what "halfth" vs "half" would be. I can easily
imagine a formation analogous to "halfth" meaning something like "the
halfway point". After all, many children will proudly tell you that
they are, for instance, four and a half years of age; that would imply
that they have passed their four-and-a-halfth birthday. (I have
passed my thirty-seven-and-a-halfth birthday this past November and
will celebrate my thirty-seven-and-three-quartersth in February. :))
Of course, such a construct would probably be a later, learned
addition to the set of linguistic numerals. Speaking of which: why do
you not consider "pi" to be a numeral in the linguistic sense? It is
thoroughly lexicalized and probably more associated with the numerical
value than the letter of the Greek alphabet in the minds of most
Anglophones . . .
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Message: 8
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 12:24:05 -0500
From: "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
On 1/7/06, Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Is this how the term is generally understood in America? Because it
> isn't even given as a secondary usage in my dictionary. The New
> Oxford says "having an elongated and typically rectangular shape / an
> object or flat figure in this shape".
I can't speak for how it's generally understood in America. The above
was my instant reaction, and seems to jibe with the OP's intent.
Let's see what some American references have to say:
Quoth Mirriam-Webster: "deviating from a square, circular, or
spherical form by elongation in one dimension"
Quoth AHD: "1. Deviating from a square, circular, or spherical form by
being elongated in one direction. [Do I detect some dictonarial
plagiarism at work here?] 2. Having the shape of or resembling a
rectangle or an ellipse. 3. (Botany) Having a somewhat elongated form
with approximately parallel sides: an oblong leaf."
I do believe that the noun "an oblong" usually refers to a ROUGHLY
rectangular item. But I would not generally refer to an actual
rectangle as "oblong", however; I would just say "rectangular". I
would likewise refer to an ellipse as "elliptical". I reserve
"oblong" for figures which are not approximations to either of the
above mathematical constructs.
--
Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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Message: 9
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 12:46:49 -0500
From: Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency
Hi R (R A Brown), in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Jan 8 you wrote:
> Mark J. Reed wrote:
> > On 1/7/06, R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[...]
> (and adjective formations in English tend to eschew
> > plurals, hence the "twenty-dollar bill" rather than the
> > *"twenty-dollars bill"), so using "euro" in English sans -s sounds
> > very strange. By which I mean, it sounds French. :)
>
> To us Brits 'twould sound OK in some contexts, but not in all. IMO while
> it is desirable to have an officially established form for the singular,
> I think it would have been better to allow national languages to decide
> their own plurals by usage.
I have a sneaking suspicion this will happen anyway, no matter what the
bureaucrats do... :-D
> >>Also I notice that no Irish forms were included.
> >
> >
> > And no Esperanto! For shame, EU! :)
>
> Um - not an official language of the EU. But all officially recognized
> national languages are given official recognition by the EU. If it is
> seen fit to include Irish on my EU pass-port surely Irish should have
> been included among the official list of names of the currency?
>
> But if there has to be an IAL included, surely Europanto has a greater
> claim? ;-)
Heh!
[...]
--
Nomad of Norad (David C. Hall) --- *TeamAmiga*
[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://www.joshua-wopr.com/
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For a dementedly wacky sci-fi continue-the-story project,
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Message: 10
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 19:34:30 +0100
From: Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: coins and currency
Quoting Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
> Hi!
>
> >...
> > I too was disappointed at the time. 'ecu' was IMO better, tho I can
> > see the pesky "c" causing problems as over in central Europe it is
> > likely to be pronounce [etsu] and if one Turkey became a member of the
> > EU and adopted the common currency, I suppose it would get pronounced
> > [edZu] :)
> >...
>
> I liked 'euro' better because Germans insisted on pronouncing 'ecu' as
> [?e:'ky:], like French.
What's bad about that?
FWIW, it was usually pronounced [E'ky:] in Swedish media.
Andreas
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Message: 11
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 13:32:00 -0500
From: Thomas Hart Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
First, the New Stuff:
How about verbs?
English has "double" and "treble" (or "triple"), for making the object
bigger or more numerous by a factor of two or three, respectively.
English also has the set phrase "half again as ..." for increasing some
attribute (perhaps size or quantity) by a factor of 1.5.
English also has the verbs "to half (smthng)" and "to quarter (smthng)"
and "to decimate (smthng)".
"To half smthng" may mean either "to divide smthng into two equal pieces"
or "to reduce smthng to half as [attribute] as it was before".
Likewise, "to quarter smthng" may mean either "to divide smthng into four
equal pieces" or "to reduce smthng to a quarter as [attribute] as it was
before".
"To decimate smthng" means "to reduce smthng by removing one-tenth of it".
---
Wouldn't it make sense for a language having verbs equivalent to "half"
and "quarter", to have a verb for "to divide smthng into three equal
pieces"?
Wouldn't it make sense for a language having verbs equivalent to "half"
and "quarter", to have a verb for "to reduce something to one-third as
[attribute] as it was before"?
Wouldn't it make sense for a language having verbs equivalent to "half"
and "decimate", to have a verb for "to reduce something by removing one-Nth
of it" for N=3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, or 9?
---
In L. Neil Smith's science-fiction novel "Their Majesties' Buccaneers",
there is a species -- the lamviin -- who, along with every other species
native to their home planet, have trisexual reproduction, three sexes, and
a body plan relentlessly built on a plan-of-three (radially symmetrical).
Any thing that a body has more than one of, it has at least three of (for
instance, three limbs, three jaws, and, a three-lobed cerebrum); and if it
has more than three of them, it has a power-of-three of them, arranged in
three equal groups (for instance, nine feet/hands and twenty-seven digits;
three hand/feet per limb for three limbs, and three digits per hand/foot
for nine hands/feet.)
In that story, the lamviin have a word for "two-thirds of"; but they never
use a word for "half of". Similarly, I expect they have a word for "one-
third of"; and a word or words for one or both of "one-and-a-third of"
and "one-and-two-thirds of".
-----
Now, on to answering your post.
--- "Mark J. Reed" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> This is going to bounce from the list since I'm
> over quota, I just realized. So I'll send it to
> you so you can cogitate on it before I re-send it
> to the list tomorrow. :)
Thanks.
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Mark J. Reed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Jan 7, 2006 6:54 PM
> Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
> To: Constructed Languages List
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> On 1/7/06, tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> wrote:
>
>> Yes, linguists writing in English use "numeral"
>> to mean "words for numbers", to distinguish
>> from "number" usually short for "grammatical
>> number" (singular, plural, etc.)
>
> Well, I didn't know about that usage. Of course,
> I'm not an actual linguist.
> Dadgum linguists - always messin up language.
> Say they're just being descriptive, but at the
> same time they're modifying whatever language
> they're doing their describing in.
> :)
Uh-huh.
What Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle ("you can't observe something
without affecting it") is to Quantum Physics, the following is to
Linguistics; "you can't use a language without changing it".
>> "Both" is to "two" as "???" is to "three", and so
>> on. In some English writing from the 19th and
>> early 20th centuries, "both" is used to
>> mean "all three of", as well as "all two of".
>> Might a series meaning "all two of" (both), "all
>> three of", ..., "all n of", ... be useful? How
>> much of this series is attested in natlangs?
>
> I don't know the answer. It would seem to have
> limited utility; the exact value of n in "all n
> of" seems less important, in general, than the
> fact that it's "all" of the items under
> discussion.
Nevertheless, English (and other languages -- one of the classical
languages contributed the English prefix "ambi-" meaning "both") has a
special word for "all two of", and apparently English users have or had
a "felt need" for a word for "all three of". I think for "smallish" N, the
concepts in this series might be individually lexicalized; with the
probable system being that, the higher N is, the likelier the word is to be
regular and transparent (if it exists at all).
> Also, you asked what "halfth" vs "half" would
> be. I can easily imagine a formation analogous
> to "halfth" meaning something like "the halfway
> point". After all, many children will proudly
> tell you that they are, for instance, four and a
> half years of age; that would imply that they
> have passed their four-and-a-halfth birthday.
> (I have passed my thirty-seven-and-a-halfth
> birthday this past November and will celebrate my
> thirty-seven-and-three-quartersth in February. :))
Interesting idea; that might make sense.
BTW When Lyndon Johnson was JFK's Vice-President, LBJ's press secretary
(Bill Moyers) and LBJ decided that there was probably some job more
exciting than being the Vice-President's press-secretary. The Peace Corps
had just been created, so Johnson got Kennedy to nominate Moyers to head up
the Peace Corps. During the Senate confirmation hearing on this
nomination, the question came up whether such an important Federal role
should go to someone so young. One Senator asked Moyers his age, and
Moyers replied: "Twenty-eight _and_a_half_, Senator."
> Of course, such a construct would probably be a
> later, learned addition to the set of linguistic
> numerals.
> Speaking of which: why do you not consider "pi"
> to be a numeral in the linguistic sense?
But I do consider "pi" to be a "linguistic numeral".
I don't know what I said to give you the idea I don't, but maybe it was
when I said "a numeral is 'spelled with' digits".
1) I only meant that, "_Most_ numerals can be spelled _mostly_ with digits".
2) The use and sense of the word "numeral" in that sentence (and in the
whole story of me teaching Math for Elementary Ed Majors), is a different
sense, and a different sort of use, from that in the story about linguists
distinguish words-for-numbers from grammatical number.
OTOH, maybe it was because I said I don't expect to introduce words for
irrational numbers in my first conlang(s).
1) I haven't gotten around to much of the conlang at all -- even
the "counting numbers" (positive natural cardinals less than [in my
case] 'base-to-the-(base-to-the-base power)') is just a sketch, at this
point.
2) Words for famous irrationals such as the square-root of two, the golden
ratio, and pi, are mostly "learned" words, not usually primitive in known
natlangs. If I design a conlang for an ancient (similar to the Mesopotamia
of Gilgamesh, or Imperial Rome) or medieval society, I expect any words
they have for irrationals to be, similarly, learned rather than primitive.
3) OTOH 'my other conlang' is supposed to be for an interstellar multi-
species spacegoing society containing Artificial Intelligences, which has
been spacegoing, interstellar, multi-species, and had AI citizens, for so
long that the language basically developed with all of these things as
givens. In that language, perhaps these "famous irrationals" should have
their own, monomorphemic words; and so, perhaps, should the imaginary unit
("i", the square-root of "-1").
> It is thoroughly lexicalized and probably more
> associated with the numerical value than the
> letter of the Greek alphabet in the minds of most
> Anglophones . . .
Good reasons to consider it a "(linguistic) numeral", that is, "the name of
a number".
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 12
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 19:42:46 +0100
From: Henrik Theiling <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT: coins and currency
Hi!
Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> >...
> > I liked 'euro' better because Germans insisted on pronouncing 'ecu' as
> > [?e:'ky:], like French.
>
> What's bad about that?
Well, it then feels like it's a French currency. To make it neutral,
it should have a neutral name. And most easily, it's neutral when
everyone has a native name for it. That's all. And this was and is
no flame against French. :-)
**Henrik
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Message: 13
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 14:21:48 -0500
From: Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
Hi Thomas (Thomas Hart Chappell), in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Jan 8 you wrote:
> First, the New Stuff:
>
> How about verbs?
>
> English has "double" and "treble" (or "triple"), for making the object
> bigger or more numerous by a factor of two or three, respectively.
>
> English also has the set phrase "half again as ..." for increasing some
> attribute (perhaps size or quantity) by a factor of 1.5.
>
> English also has the verbs "to half (smthng)" and "to quarter (smthng)"
> and "to decimate (smthng)".
>
> "To half smthng" may mean either "to divide smthng into two equal pieces"
> or "to reduce smthng to half as [attribute] as it was before".
>
> Likewise, "to quarter smthng" may mean either "to divide smthng into four
> equal pieces" or "to reduce smthng to a quarter as [attribute] as it was
> before".
>
> "To decimate smthng" means "to reduce smthng by removing one-tenth of it".
Interesting. The way I've always seen it used, "decimate" = "destroy,
obliterate"
As in, "The swarming ghllkkkxxoorvvian warfleet swooped down over the
continents of Earth and decimated the worlds population..."
--
Nomad of Norad (David C. Hall) --- *TeamAmiga*
[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- http://www.joshua-wopr.com/
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
For a dementedly wacky sci-fi continue-the-story project,
join my WebBBS. http://www.joshua-wopr.com/phpBB/index.php
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Message: 14
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:20:43 +0100
From: taliesin the storyteller <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency
* R A Brown said on 2006-01-07 17:46:01 +0100
> The table below will make more sense with monospaced font :)
>
> RightPondians, and others, can find out more about
> the euro on:
> http://europa.eu.int/euro
>
> Among its pages you will discover this:
> {quote}
> Spelling of the words "euro" and "cent" in the official Community
> languages - to be used when drawing up Community Legislative acts
>
> expressed as an amount ********* with definite article
> language one unit several units singular plural
> DA 1 euro 100 euro euroen euroene
> 1 cent 100 cent centen centene
/snip/
>
>
> The official abbreviation, according to ISO 4217, for "euro" is "EUR"
> in all languages. There is no official abbreviation for "cent", but
> one could reflect on using either "c" or "ct".
> {/unquote}
I think it was Lithuania or Latvia that lacks the |eu|-diphthong/
combination completely, pronouncing it as /ei/: /eiro/ and /eira/
instead of /euro/, /evro/ and similar, and that this had led to some
conflict as the EU insisted the u was pronounced... (or was it that the
ei-speakers also wanted to write Euro as Eiro?)
t.
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Message: 15
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 14:54:47 -0500
From: Paul Bennett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 14:21:48 -0500, Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hi Thomas (Thomas Hart Chappell), in
>> "To decimate smthng" means "to reduce smthng by removing one-tenth of
>> it".
>
> Interesting. The way I've always seen it used, "decimate" = "destroy,
> obliterate"
That's the *ahem* descriptivist meaning. The folk-etymology seems have
been "to reduce to one tenth", which was then reinterpreted as "to reduce
by ten tenths", or something.
However, the meaning in the dictionary is indeed "to reduce *by* one
tenth". It's related to ancient Greek military practices, as far as I
recall. Putting one tenth of captured troops to death, or some such
activity.
There's also the meaning found in digital video processing, where "to
decimate something by N" means to drop every Nth frame from something.
Paul
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Message: 16
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:15:17 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: Is there a World-Design mailing list?
--- In [email protected], Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> [snip]
> Does anyone know anything about [snip] any other world-
> design list? [snip]
I am in the following groups:
http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/world-design/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/anewworld/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/conworld/
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/geofiction/
"games.../.../world-design" and "geofiction" are the most active and
have the most members.
"anewworld" needs more members. It was active up until June 2005;
now the members seem to be taking a break for a bit, although
activity could pick up again any time.
"conworld" has more than twice as many members, but it is less
active; everyone seems to have been on break since May 2005.
I am also in the following Google groups:
soc.history.what-if
alt.history.future
rec.arts.sf.composition
which might be relevant to your question.
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 17
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:27:56 +0000
From: R A Brown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: OT coins and currency
Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall wrote:
> Hi R (R A Brown), in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Jan 8 you wrote:
[snip]
>>>plurals, hence the "twenty-dollar bill" rather than the
>>>*"twenty-dollars bill"), so using "euro" in English sans -s sounds
>>>very strange. By which I mean, it sounds French. :)
>>
>>To us Brits 'twould sound OK in some contexts, but not in all. IMO while
>>it is desirable to have an officially established form for the singular,
>>I think it would have been better to allow national languages to decide
>>their own plurals by usage.
>
>
> I have a sneaking suspicion this will happen anyway, no matter what the
> bureaucrats do... :-D
I am sure you are right. I cannot image people generally saying "two
cents" if they are referring to US, Canadian, Ausie or NZ currency, but
saying "two cent" if they are referring to the euro currency. That is
IMO just petty prescriptiveness. It won't work.
Similarly people are going to say and write 'euros' where the context
demands it, whatever the bureaucrats say. But it is just this clearly
stupid & petty bureaucratic prescriptiveness that has given the EU a bad
name in my country and fills pro-Europeans like myself with dismay &
frustration.
===============================
Henrik Theiling wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>
>>>...
>>>I liked 'euro' better because Germans insisted on pronouncing 'ecu' as
>>>[?e:'ky:], like French.
>>
>>What's bad about that?
>
>
> Well, it then feels like it's a French currency.
Well, the 'ecu' was indeed once a French coin :-)
>To make it neutral,
> it should have a neutral name. And most easily, it's neutral when
> everyone has a native name for it.
Agreed - but not everyone does have a _native_ name for the 'euro'. see
below:
====================================
taliesin the storyteller wrote:
> * R A Brown said on 2006-01-07 17:46:01 +0100
[snip]
>>
>>The official abbreviation, according to ISO 4217, for "euro" is "EUR"
>>in all languages. There is no official abbreviation for "cent", but
>>one could reflect on using either "c" or "ct".
>>{/unquote}
>
>
> I think it was Lithuania or Latvia that lacks the |eu|-diphthong/
> combination completely, pronouncing it as /ei/: /eiro/ and /eira/
> instead of /euro/, /evro/ and similar, and that this had led to some
> conflict as the EU insisted the u was pronounced... (or was it that the
> ei-speakers also wanted to write Euro as Eiro?)
I don't know about Latvia, but the Lithuanian for 'Europe' is "Eiropa".
Whether the Lithuanians actually expressed a wish to be allowed to call
the 'euro' an "eiro", I don't know. But the name, it seems, must be
'euro' even though the combo 'eu' is pronounced quite differently in the
various countries and, indeed, is a foreign combo for some.
I notice that officially the Greeks alone are permitted to dispense with
those two vowels and call it /ev'ro/. But the rest of us must have 'eu'.
I feel sure a better & more imaginative and truly neutral name, without
these phonetic complications, could have chosen. But I fear it is too
late now.
FWIW, by Welsh speakers 'euro' is less likely to be associated with
Europe (which is 'Ewrop' in Welsh), and more likely to be associated
with _gold_ - cf:
euraid = golden
eurych = goldsmith
euro = to gild :)
--
Ray
==================================
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.carolandray.plus.com
==================================
MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
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Message: 18
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 20:30:38 +0000
From: Tim May <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Theory] Types of numerals
Paul Bennett wrote at 2006-01-08 14:54:47 (-0500)
> On Sun, 08 Jan 2006 14:21:48 -0500, Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Hi Thomas (Thomas Hart Chappell), in
> >> "To decimate smthng" means "to reduce smthng by removing one-tenth of
> >> it".
> >
> > Interesting. The way I've always seen it used, "decimate" = "destroy,
> > obliterate"
>
> That's the *ahem* descriptivist meaning. The folk-etymology seems have
> been "to reduce to one tenth", which was then reinterpreted as "to reduce
> by ten tenths", or something.
>
> However, the meaning in the dictionary is indeed "to reduce *by* one
> tenth". It's related to ancient Greek military practices, as far as I
> recall. Putting one tenth of captured troops to death, or some such
> activity.
Roman, not Greek. And it's not captured troops, but a collective
punishment of one's own forces for mutiny or cowardice. Obviously an
extremely severe punishment, and it's not difficult to see how it
comes to be used to mean "severely reduce".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimation
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Message: 19
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 15:35:44 -0500
From: Thomas Hart Chappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Code-switching (within a sentence) between a Conlang and a Natlang or
other Conlang.
Hello, the list.
I am reading a book on Tree-Adjoining Grammars, among others.
It has one chapter on code-switching.
I wonder, has anyone tried to develop rules and/or examples for their
conlang codeswitching with a familiar natlang, or with another conlang
(whether their own or someone else's)?
-----
This chapter is about how neither Lexicalized TAGs nor just plain TAGs can
handle certain aspects of code-switching.
If a sentence is partly in one language and partly in another, then "head
and dependent(s)" phrases have their word-order etc. governed by the rule
that applies to the language the "head" comes from.
But say the two languages are, one of them, prepositional, and the other is
postpositional. Then the prepositons will always come first even if their
objects are from postpositional languages, and the postpositions will
always come last even if their objects are from prepositional languages.
But, if the phrase is not a "head-and-complement" type phrase, their is no
such rule.
As examples, they say, certain adjectives (e.g. "mere") act as head-words,
with the modified noun-phrase as a dependent. These adjectives can't be
used as predicate attributives (*the fact is mere); they can't be used with
indefinite nouns (*the mere one); and the equivalent adjective in two
different languages tend to have the same word-order relative to the
modified noun, even if most adjectives in one of the languages tend to come
in the other order.
The "complements are distributed according to the language of the head"
rule applies to adjectives such as "mere".
However, other adjectives (like "red") don't act as heads. And, with these
adjectives, the distribution is not predictable.
If the sentence is in a mixture of an A-N language and an N-A language, all
four orders are possible;
Adjective from A-N, noun from N-A, order "A N";
Adjective from A-N, noun from N-A, order "N A";
Adjective from N-A, noun from A-N, order "A N";
Adjective from N-A, noun from A-N, order "N A".
Indeed, if most of the sentence is in an A-N language, but both the
adjective and the noun are from an N-A language, both "A N" and "N A"
orders are possible; likewise if most of the sentence is in an N-A
language, but the adjective and noun are both from an A-N language, both "N
A" and "A N" are possible.
---
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 20
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:41:48 +0100
From: Carsten Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: coins and currency
Random thoughts ...
Hrm, all that talking about money and con-money makes me
think about how I should name the currencies of the LAN and
Tarsyania. Probably _Megelang_ (0.518 kg => Pound) and
_Sin_, _Sinang_ /si.nA~/ or _Sinongh_ /si.nO~:/? Both might
have abolished the _Crown_ after the Revolution mentioned in
the Tarsyanian grammar. I haven't yet typed up enough to know
how Tarsyanian derives nouns from adjectives (TAR _sin_ <
AYR _sino_, "free"). _Sinang_ would be more correct than
_Sinongh_, though, since _sinang_ derives from AYR _sinan_
which ought to mean 'freedom' (or more specifically 'the
concept of being free', an irreal noun thus). Since both
languages are intended to be closely related (but not
derived from one another), that should be OK. For the sake
of simplicity, I could abbreviate those two currencies _A£_
and _T$_, _:mg_ and _:sn_. The sub-units should be called
_civeng_ (smaller) resp. _kjeng_ /k_jE~/ (sub-, less),
supposedly abbreviated _:cv_ and _:kj_.
What would be the best divisions when your culture is
counting in dozens? I don't like the old British three-unit
system either because it's rather complicated if you're not
used to counting in dozens and scores, so I would go for two
units like Dollar/Cent, Pound/Pence and what have you. And
not weird amounts like in Harry Potter, 29 Sickles = 1
Galleon or so ... although the measurements I have made up
for lengths and weights are similarly irregular. After
severeal hours (!) of try-and-error with odd values due to
equal divisions of 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32, 1/100, I
decided to boringly copy the Euro, but with 60, 6, 0.60 and
0.06 instead of the same with fives because of duodecimal
counting. No paper money yet -- all these are *coins* of
various common metals (gold, silver, bronze, copper, zinc,
nickel): 100, 60, 20, 10, 6, 2, 1, 0.60, 0.20, 0.10, 0.06,
0.02, 0.01 ... I know that the division of the Euro is not
ideal according to Tom Chappell's recent message, but it's
easy to deal with. Given a rate of US$ 1 = A£ 0.31 and = T$
0.65 (in decimal) ... A£/T$ 0.01 have at least *some*
worth!! You could have fun with PHP and generate exchange
courses :-) Has anyone done something like that? Heh, you
must even consider con-in- and -deflation rates ;-)
I wonder where the names for the Bolivian _Bolivar_ and the
Brazilian _Real_ come from. As for Bolivar, is the name just
derived from the country's name?
Cheers,
Carsten Becker
--
Keywords: con-culture, money
"Miranayam cepauarà naranoaris."
(Calvin nay Hobbes)
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Message: 21
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 16:27:35 -0500
From: "Ph.D." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency
Carsten Becker wrote:
>
> I wonder where the names for the Bolivian _Bolivar_
> and the Brazilian _Real_ come from. As for Bolivar,
> is the name just derived from the country's name?
The country and the currency are named after Simon
Bolivar, the general who led Peruvian and Bolivian
forces to victory over the Spanish in the early nineteenth
century.
--Ph. D.
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Message: 22
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:24:49 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
--- In [email protected], caeruleancentaur
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In [email protected], Andreas Johansson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> >The original meaning is apparently "comparatively long along one
> >axis", which is close enough to how I'd use it. The archetypical
> >oblong shapes would be ovals and whatever the 3D shape you get if
> you >rotate an oval around its longest axis is called.
>
>
> American Heritage Dictionary:
>
> 1) Having a long dimension, especially having one of two
> perpendicular dimensions, as length or width, greater than the
> other, elongated.
>
> 2) Having the shape of or resembling a rectangle or an ellipse.
>
> I don't think that solves anything!! It seems as though definition
> one would fit shapes like a lozenge.
>
> BTW, the shape one gets when rotating an oval around its longest
> axis is called a watermelon.
(LoL!)
Actually it's called a Prolate Ellipsoid.
The one you get by rotating the ellipse around its minor axis, is
called an Oblate Ellipsoid.
An Ellipsoid with three unequal axes is just called an Ellipsoid; the
other two are distinguished as Ellipsoids of Revolution.
"Oval" (meaning "egg-shaped") actually has a particular mathematical
meaning in Projective Geometry; but other than that, "oval" is used
to denote any roughly egg-shaped curve that is not an ellipse (for
instance, "the ovals of Cassini", obtained as plane cross-sections of
a torus.)
>
> Charlie
> http://wiki.frath.net/user:caeruleancentaur
>
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 23
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:47:15 +0000
From: wayne chevrier <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> nevesht:
>
>Hi Nik (Nik Taylor), in <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> on Jan 7 you
>wrote:
>
> > Nomad of Norad -- David C Hall wrote:
> > > I haven't laid eyes on these Japanese coins, though. Somebody got a
> > > URL providing pictures?
> >
> > Here's a couple
> > Rectangular 2-shu http://www.lioncoins.com/jpegs/2shumkn.jpg - .980
>Silver
> >
> > Oblong Koban http://www.lioncoins.com/jpegs/shotkk.jpg (gold/silver
>alloy)
>
>Cool! Are there any 20th or 21st Century coins akin to that?
>
>--
The Tonga Pa'anga has been issued in a rectangular form, some Chinese
NCLT(noncurculating legal tender(id est made for collectors) coins are as
well, and the East Carribean States issued gilded silver copies of their
banknotes.
Other unusual coins include a set of coin issued by three Pacific island
countries that were a third part of a ring, two countries issued a set of
two that fit together into a circle like puzzle pieces, and the Cook Islands
has a triangular coin.
--Wayne Chevrier
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Message: 24
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 21:58:50 -0000
From: tomhchappell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: coins and currency (was: [Theory] Types of numerals)
--- In [email protected], Jefferson Wilson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
wrote:
>
> Paul Bennett wrote:
> > On Fri, 06 Jan 2006 08:11:15 -0500, Mark J. Reed
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> In US currency, for instance, there are essentially 4 sub-dollar
> >> denominations (1, 5, 10, 25), since half dolalrs are very rare.
As a
> >> result, some values require up to 9 coins (e.g. 94¢ and 99¢).
> >> Reintroduction of a commonly-circulated half-dollar would cut
that
> >> down by one coin; a two-cent piece would reduce it by two more.
That
> >> would yield six denominations and a maximum minimum (:)) of six
coins
> >> per value.
> >
> >
> > I'm sure you're aware of the British system, which is partitioned
1, 2,
> > 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500, etc. I have a gut feeling that
it's more
> > optimal than the US system of (essentially) 1, 5, 10, 25, 100,
500,
> > 1000, 2000, which strikes me as more organic but less wieldy.
> >
> > Of course, it shouldn't take much math to prove that the most
optimal
> > system would have units of 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, etc., provided of
course
> > that the general populace could be made sufficiently familiar
with the
> > concept.
>
> Depends on whether you want the lowest number of _coins_ or the
> lowest number of _types_. Binary is good for the former, but for
> the latter you get the series: 1, 3, 6, 12, 24, etc. (Something
> to keep in mind for those of us with duodecimal numbering systems
> I think.) Hmmm, take this series up to 96, round each value to
> the nearest number divisible by 5, and you have the American
> coinage system.
>
> --
> Jefferson
> http://www.picotech.net/~
>
As far as minimizing the [number of coins] (not the number of types
of coins) you have to get and/or give in change, and keep carrying
around in your pocket-or-whatever (not the number in existence),
the optimum ratio is either 3 or 4. That is, each coin (or
denomination of note) is either 3 or 4 of the next lower, and either
one-third or one-fourth of the next higher.
So, 1, 3, 9, 27, 81, 243, 729 ... is a good series;
1, 4, 16, 64, 256, 1024, 4096 ... is a good series;
1, 3, 12, 36, 144, 432, 1728 ... is a good series;
1, 4, 12, 48, 144, 576, 1728 ... is a good series.
----
A base for a number system has extra conveniences if it has many
factors. Defining, for the moment, a "good base" to mean "a number
that has at least as many factors as any smaller number", we get the
following "good bases";
2 factors: 2, 3
3 factors: 4
4 factors: 6, 8, 10
6 factors: 12, 18, 20
8 factors: 24, 30
9 factors: 36
10 factors: 48
12 factors: 60, 72, 84, 90, 96, 108
16 factors: 120, 168
and so on.
Natlangs, and ordinary uneducated people, aren't likely to use bases
greater than about 40 (in spite of the Mesopotamian/Egyptian/Greek
scholars' fondness for base 60).
Besides, the base 12 -- a "good base" -- fits neatly with the third
and fourth example series I wrote towards the beginning of this reply.
So, I plan to use base 12.
I might use something like:
1 "knuckle" or "joint"
3 knuckles = 1 "finger" or "digit"
12 knuckles = 4 fingers = 1 "hand"
36
144
432
1728
... etc.
Or, since I'd rather have the higher factor used first, I could use
the series
1
4
12
48
144
576
1728
... etc.
but then I don't know what I'd name them.
---
Tom H.C. in MI
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Message: 25
Date: Sun, 8 Jan 2006 14:10:04 -0800
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: coins and currency
And I'm making a somewhat reasonable assumption, but Real sounds close
to Royal (in French and Spanish, they are the same).
On 1/8/06, Ph.D. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Carsten Becker wrote:
> >
> > I wonder where the names for the Bolivian _Bolivar_
> > and the Brazilian _Real_ come from. As for Bolivar,
> > is the name just derived from the country's name?
>
>
> The country and the currency are named after Simon
> Bolivar, the general who led Peruvian and Bolivian
> forces to victory over the Spanish in the early nineteenth
> century.
>
> --Ph. D.
>
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