There are 15 messages in this issue.
Topics in this digest:
1.1. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Jonathan Beagley
1.2. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
1.3. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
1.4. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Alex Fink
1.5. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
1.6. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
1.7. Re: Colloquial French resources
From: Aidan Grey
2a. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Matthew George
2b. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Padraic Brown
2c. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2d. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Matthew George
2e. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Andrew Schade
2f. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Andrew Schade
2g. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets
2h. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
From: Matthew George
Messages
________________________________________________________________________
1.1. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Jonathan Beagley" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 7:41 am ((PDT))
2013/9/3 Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <[email protected]>
> On 2 September 2013 22:50, Aidan Grey <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Thank you, Christophe! Polypersonalism is the main reason Wassa is going
> > polysynthetic. And thank for your offer of additional explanation!
> >
> >
> You're welcome :).
>
>
> > I do have a question or two other than Polyperson agreement:
> >
> > - What is happening with gender, as a generality? Are they staying
> strong?
> > Merging? Diverging along different lines? Expanding / multiplying?
> >
> >
> Despite the difficulties outlined in previous posts of this thread (i.e.
> what happens when grammatical and referent gender don't match), gender
> remains strong in French. The masculine/feminine distinction shows no sign
> of eroding, nor any sign of breaking up into more genders. Indeed, the
> latest trend (in France at least) has been to *add* gendered variants,
> especially to nouns of professions that existed only in one gender.
> Nowadays all have both a masculine and a feminine variant (in some cases
> those are identical in form, resulting in effectively epicene nouns, like
> the noun _ministre_: "minister", which can now be used both with _le_ and
> _la_, solving the issue of the very awkward _madame le ministre_).
>
Speaking of masculine and feminine variants, I am consistently at a loss
when it comes to "médecin". My doctor is female, so this is frequently an
issue for me. I generally say, "le médecin" and then use the pronoun _elle_
to refer to her subsequently, but this seems awkward. I know one
work-around is "femme médecin", but it's such a bloody awkward expression
that I can never bring myself to use it.
> What does seem to happen though is the reclassification of somewhat
> uncommon nouns based on shape, i.e. nouns switch gender compared to their
> gender in Written French because they are not commonly used, and their
> shape suggests the other gender (due to analogy with more common nouns).
> Another interesting phenomenon when it comes to gender is the
> reclassification of gender of entire *phrases* based on the effective
> referent. Let me give an example: in Spoken French expression starting with
> _espèce de..._ are very common. They are difficult to translate, ranging
> from meanings like "some kind of..." to effectively augmentatives (but
> always with some kind of pejorative meaning, or at least slightly
> denigrating). Examples are _espèce d'imbécile_ (used vocatively, it means
> "what an idiot!", but it can also be used in a sentence), _espèce de
> voiture_: "some kind of car", etc. The interesting thing about such
> expressions is that the head of those phrases is the noun _espèce_, which
> is feminine in French. So one would expect _une espèce d'imbécile_, _une
> espèce de voiture_, etc. But in Spoken French, the gender of such phrases
> is normally the gender of the actual referent, i.e. the gender of the noun
> used as modifier to the _espèce de..._ phrase! In other words, if
> _imbécile_ refers to a male (it's an adjective used nominally, and
> epicene), one will normally say _un espèce d'imbécile_ (with the masculine
> indefinite article rather than the feminine one!). It's as if _espèce
> de..._ has lost its grammatical status and behaves like a prefix rather
> than like a head noun.
> this phenomenon isn't restricted to _espèce de..._: other similar
> expressions have the same behaviour. Although most of them belong to
> impolite language, so I will refrain from naming them unless pushed :P.
>
>
Allow me to butt in here. :P This is, indeed, a common phenomenon and one
I've noticed frequently. One of the other "impolite" expressions that
Christophe is referring to here is _putain de..._, which, I believe (and
this was also claimed by one of my professors) is the source of the
"confusion" with _espèce de..._. AFAIK, "putain" as used in _putain de_ has
always behaved like a prefix and never as a head noun (correct me if I'm
wrong), which means that you would say _une putain de voiture_ or _un
putain de jour de merde_ (sorry, I can only think of bad things with this
one xD). As a result, it's likely that _espèce_ has analogized after
_putain de_.
>
> > - Adjectives: in spoken french, I understand that most adjectives have
> one
> > form, for all genders and numbers (an example being
> > turc/turque/turcs/turques for 'Turkish', all pronounced /tyRk/. How
> strong
> > is that? Is it accurate?
> >
> >
> It's accurate as long as you don't factor in *liaison*. But then things get
> complicated in that when does liaison happen is a complex issue, that
> depends both on the phonological and grammatical environment, and the
> actual words in question. Liaison is not a purely phonological phenomenon.
>
> Also, "most adjectives" might be a bit exaggerated. Still quite a lot of
> commonly (and less commonly) used adjectives have at least different
> masculine and feminine forms, although most don't change in the plural
> indeed.
>
>
Another note is that many of the doubled vowels are apparently indicators
of vocalic gemination in certain parts of France (according to some of my
professors and/or reading I've done, but I haven't been able to confirm
this), so that there is indeed a difference between, for example, _viré_
and _virée_.
>
> > Besides these obvious bits (and pas alone for negation), are there any
> > other details that differ markedly from literary French? Anywhere I can
> > look for a list / explanation of the major points of difference?
> >
> >
> So many! If you can locate _Colloquial French Grammar: a practical guide_
> by Rodney Ball, I advise you to have a look at it. It's not perfect, but
> it's good enough as a starting point :). I couldn't even start to give you
> a list, as the differences are everywhere :).
>
Another difference I have noticed is with indirect questions.
Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé combien c'était
Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé c'était combien
The first time I heard this was from a friend of mine from Martinique and I
assumed it was a dialectal thing, but I have since heard the same
construction relatively often from my boyfriend who has spent his life
between Rennes and Toulouse.
You will also get things like:
Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé ce qu'il avait fait
Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé qu'est-ce qu'il avait fait
In other words, the "normal" interrogative structure is maintained and
simply embedded in the main clause.
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Jonathan
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.2. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 11:44 am ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 1:17 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > - What is happening with gender, as a generality? Are they staying
> strong?
> > Merging? Diverging along different lines? Expanding / multiplying?
> >
> >
> Despite the difficulties outlined in previous posts of this thread (i.e.
> what happens when grammatical and referent gender don't match), gender
> remains strong in French. The masculine/feminine distinction shows no sign
> of eroding, nor any sign of breaking up into more genders. Indeed, the
> latest trend (in France at least) has been to *add* gendered variants,
> especially to nouns of professions that existed only in one gender.<snip>
>
I think this means that for Wassa the genders will be analogized across the
board (the current generic patterns will take over fully). In practice,
this will mean that -n and -s, for example, make a feminine noun (atà
'author' ? atas 'female author'. ) Because final consonants are retained in
feminine nouns, that will be the major distinction. Liasion will generally
disappear, but with an analogical/generic epenthetic k (from the ? glottal
stops at the end of words < /x/ < /R/) before vowels only - or possibly,
ALL vowel initial adjectives will move to k- (e.g. kahteshu 'arterial' as
in sa kahteshu 'arterial blood' ).
> Another interesting phenomenon when it comes to gender is the
> reclassification of gender of entire *phrases* based on the effective
> referent. Let me give an example: in Spoken French expression starting with
> _espèce de..._ are very common. <snip?
>
With additional examples from Jonathan (thanks!), I think these will become
prefixes, of which polysythetic languages are so fond. :)
espèce de > wes-, > wessa 'blood type'. At least, that's a possibility,
haven't figured out all the sound changes yet.
putain de > ta*- (* induces 'nasailization', a remnant of the nasal vowel)
so tadava 'nicotine'< ta 'bad, unwanted, derogatory' + tava< tabac ... or
something. :) Again, sound changes ain't done yet. :)
It's accurate as long as you don't factor in *liaison*. But then things get
> complicated in that when does liaison happen is a complex issue, that
> depends both on the phonological and grammatical environment, and the
> actual words in question. Liaison is not a purely phonological phenomenon.
>
> Also, "most adjectives" might be a bit exaggerated. Still quite a lot of
> commonly (and less commonly) used adjectives have at least different
> masculine and feminine forms, although most don't change in the plural
> indeed.
>
>
In Wassa, I think it will be _most_, primarily because the distinguishing
factors are disappearing and or becoming fossilized/analogized. Liaison
will disappear because it will be replaced by analogized forms preventing
liaison environments. Kréyol zanmi for French ami, for example. Perhaps
some fossilized forms with variation, or change of meaning between the
variants. Beau, bel, and belle, for example - beau might become good
(likely, given that bon will like become bo, and beau would become bo as
well), bel(le) > pretty,good-looking.
> So many! If you can locate _Colloquial French Grammar: a practical guide_
> by Rodney Ball, I advise you to have a look at it. It's not perfect, but
> it's good enough as a starting point :).
>
>
It's on my list! Thanks!
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.3. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 12:05 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 8:41 AM, Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]
> wrote:
> Speaking of masculine and feminine variants, I am consistently at a loss
> when it comes to "médecin". <snip>
>
Wassa: metse, metsen, if I hold to my idea about final n/s....
Given that le/la would merge with the few sound changes i have figured out
at the moment, and since liaison would be obliterated by analogy, and
gender-political pressures... I think gender might end up disappearing as
a useful category in Wassa...
> "putain" as used in _putain de_ has
> always behaved like a prefix and never as a head noun (correct me if I'm
> wrong), which means that you would say _une putain de voiture_ or _un
> putain de jour de merde_ (sorry, I can only think of bad things with this
> one xD). As a result, it's likely that _espèce_ has analogized after
> _putain de_.
>
>
And this is why I made them prefixes in Wassa!
putain de > p'tã > ta-
> <snip>
> >
>
> Another difference I have noticed is with indirect questions.
>
> Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé combien c'était
> Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé c'était combien
> <snip>
>
> Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé ce qu'il avait fait
> Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé qu'est-ce qu'il avait fait
>
> In other words, the "normal" interrogative structure is maintained and
> simply embedded in the main clause.
>
I'm really interested in these, because if I go polypersonal on verbs, I
need to figure out how to handle these situations - questions, commands,
indirect statements, etc.
When using the polypersonal stuff in SF, how do the general questions get
handled? What about commands? How does one say, for example, "give it to
him"?
Thanks,
Aidan
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.4. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Alex Fink" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 12:35 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 13:05:52 -0600, Aidan Grey <[email protected]> wrote:
>Given that le/la would merge with the few sound changes i have figured out
>at the moment, and since liaison would be obliterated by analogy, and
>gender-political pressures... I think gender might end up disappearing as
>a useful category in Wassa...
Would it survive in verbal inflexion, though? _il_ and _elle_ might not merge.
And that ought to be enough to make persist the category.
On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 12:44:16 -0600, Aidan Grey <[email protected]> wrote:
>I think this means that for Wassa the genders will be analogized across the
>board (the current generic patterns will take over fully). In practice,
>this will mean that -n and -s, for example, make a feminine noun (atà
>'author' > atas 'female author'. ) Because final consonants are retained in
>feminine nouns, that will be the major distinction. Liasion will generally
>disappear, but with an analogical/generic epenthetic k (from the ? glottal
>stops at the end of words < /x/ < /R/) before vowels only - or possibly,
>ALL vowel initial adjectives will move to k- (e.g. kahteshu 'arterial' as
>in sa kahteshu 'arterial blood' ).
Is /R/ in fact the most frequent liaising consonant in present spoken French?
My guess (through experience only with book French) would've been that it's
/z/, with one of /n R t/ in second -- and for that matter, that something like
/t/ is the most "unmarked", whatever in the world that means. Or does the
syntactic distribution in contexts that survive into Wassa somehow tilt this?
Are you really positing /x/ > /?/ > /k/? It feels a stretch to me, and
Duke-of-Yorky besides. It's extremely hard to resurrect a glottal stop into
anything with oral obstruction, so I suppose that part has to be a reversal of
direction of an original change [k] > [?] of some sort. And it's strange too
for the continuant [x] to go to the noncontinuant [?], rather than [h].
What does _kahteshu_ represent phone*ically? (I kinda hope "sh" isn't a
digraph for [S]; if you ask me it's a gross one, and current French
orthography's "ch" for [S] is much more aligned with the grain of the Roman
alphabet in its gamut of usage.)
Eh, I might as well come out and ask the whole question: what are your posited
sound changes?
Alex
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.5. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:36 pm ((PDT))
On 3 September 2013 16:41, Jonathan Beagley <[email protected]>wrote:
>
> Speaking of masculine and feminine variants, I am consistently at a loss
> when it comes to "médecin". My doctor is female, so this is frequently an
> issue for me. I generally say, "le médecin" and then use the pronoun _elle_
> to refer to her subsequently, but this seems awkward. I know one
> work-around is "femme médecin", but it's such a bloody awkward expression
> that I can never bring myself to use it.
>
>
Yeah, that's an awkward one. The official solution is to make "médecin"
epicene, i.e. you're allowed to say "la médecin". If you still find that
awkward, you could always use the feminine form of "docteur": "doctoresse".
Although that form is not often used.
> >
> Allow me to butt in here. :P This is, indeed, a common phenomenon and one
> I've noticed frequently. One of the other "impolite" expressions that
> Christophe is referring to here is _putain de..._, which, I believe (and
> this was also claimed by one of my professors) is the source of the
> "confusion" with _espèce de..._. AFAIK, "putain" as used in _putain de_ has
> always behaved like a prefix and never as a head noun (correct me if I'm
> wrong), which means that you would say _une putain de voiture_ or _un
> putain de jour de merde_ (sorry, I can only think of bad things with this
> one xD). As a result, it's likely that _espèce_ has analogized after
> _putain de_.
>
>
I don't know where the phenomenon started, but indeed I don't remember
"putain de..." ever using anything else but the gender of the following
noun.
And for those wondering, "putain" means "hooker, whore", and is a common
swear word in French. And indeed, French people like to concatenate swear
words like Jonathan's example.
> >
> Another note is that many of the doubled vowels are apparently indicators
> of vocalic gemination in certain parts of France (according to some of my
> professors and/or reading I've done, but I haven't been able to confirm
> this), so that there is indeed a difference between, for example, _viré_
> and _virée_.
>
>
I'm not aware of those. I'm aware of some cases of vocalic gemination, but
they are all expressive, i.e. purely prosodic effects rather than
grammatical markers.
>
> Another difference I have noticed is with indirect questions.
>
> Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé combien c'était
> Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé c'était combien
>
> The first time I heard this was from a friend of mine from Martinique and I
> assumed it was a dialectal thing, but I have since heard the same
> construction relatively often from my boyfriend who has spent his life
> between Rennes and Toulouse.
>
>
I've never heard that one.
> You will also get things like:
>
> Standard Written French: Je lui ai demandé ce qu'il avait fait
> Spoken French: Je lui ai demandé qu'est-ce qu'il avait fait
>
>
That one, however, is relatively common as far as I know.
> In other words, the "normal" interrogative structure is maintained and
> simply embedded in the main clause.
>
>
Except for yes-no questions, which still use the conjunction "si".
On 3 September 2013 21:05, Aidan Grey <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> I'm really interested in these, because if I go polypersonal on verbs, I
> need to figure out how to handle these situations - questions, commands,
> indirect statements, etc.
>
> When using the polypersonal stuff in SF, how do the general questions get
> handled?
Like declarative sentences mostly, as questions and declarative sentences
in Spoken French are often identical besides intonation. There are some
complications, like the post-clitic "-ti", whose position and distribution
I'm not sure about, but it often appears after the verb.
> What about commands? How does one say, for example, "give it to
> him"?
>
>
As in Standard French: "donne-le-lui". Although actually, Spoken French
will often use "ça" to render "it" here, so the result would be "donne-lui
ça" (although written separately, "ça" here is at least a clitic, maybe a
suffix). The difference with standard French is that if for instance the
object is separately mentioned as a noun phrase, it will still be indicated
in the verbal complex, unless it directly follows it (in which case the
object noun phrase will fall under the verbal accentuation, which
effectively makes it into an incorporated object).
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.6. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:43 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Alex Fink <[email protected]> wrote:
> I think gender might end up disappearing as
> >a useful category in Wassa...
>
> Would it survive in verbal inflexion, though? _il_ and _elle_ might not
> merge. And that ought to be enough to make persist the category.
>
I was thinking that gendered independent pronouns would likely remain, but
otherwise, gender as a grammatical category would disappear.
>
>
> On Tue, 3 Sep 2013 12:44:16 -0600, Aidan Grey <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> Is /R/ in fact the most frequent liaising consonant in present spoken
> French? My guess (through experience only with book French) would've been
> that it's /z/, with one of /n R t/ in second -- and for that matter, that
> something like /t/ is the most "unmarked", whatever in the world that
> means. Or does the syntactic distribution in contexts that survive into
> Wassa somehow tilt this?
>
It's not the semantic tilt, but the prevalence of the guttural R, which
becomes /x/, then a glottal stop (at least, finally it does). /n/ and /t/
are definitely in the running too. /z/ will collapse with /s/... I think. I
haven't worked out whether the default "liaison" consonant will be
phonologically or semantically constrained yet.
> Are you really positing /x/ > /?/ > /k/? It feels a stretch to me, and
> Duke-of-Yorky besides. It's extremely hard to resurrect a glottal stop
> into anything with oral obstruction, so I suppose that part has to be a
> reversal of direction of an original change [k] > [?] of some sort. And
> it's strange too for the continuant [x] to go to the noncontinuant [?],
> rather than [h].
>
I'm positing stops > ? finally. /x/ > /h/, but /k/ in liaison
environments, and it remains there once the liaison is eroded. That's the
idea at the moment, anyway.
/x/ > /?/, > /k/ is not so weird - it has happened in Modern Irish, for
one. It's not /x/ > /?/ > /k/, but > /?/ in one environment, and /k/ in
another (specifically, liaison / before a vowel across word boundary).
> What does _kahteshu_ represent phone*ically? (I kinda hope "sh" isn't a
> digraph for [S]; if you ask me it's a gross one, and current French
> orthography's "ch" for [S] is much more aligned with the grain of the Roman
> alphabet in its gamut of usage.)
>
/ka.htE.Su/ where h is preaspiration, for which I forget the XSampa at the
moment.
Sorry - I'm an Americanist when it comes to anything polysynthetic. :)
Plus, I'm leaving french orthography is the past, far in the past. In
Wassa, the orthography has been rebuilt from scratch. I am thinking that
ultimately, /S/ will be represented with [x], a la Pinyin.
>
> Eh, I might as well come out and ask the whole question: what are your
> posited sound changes?
>
>
Don't have a lot figured out yet.
- /R/ > /x/ > do all sorts of things, depending on environment.
Preaspiration and devoicing for sure.
- diphthongs in jV and wV (I think that's the falling diph., but I can
never remember) will disappear, the former through palatization, the latter
through.... I dunno.
- loss of lots of voicing distinctions
- loss of nasalization on vowels - compensatory lengthening in response,
which before C will induce gemination. (this is where the -ss- of Wassa
comes from). Ultimately, falling diphthongs will return via breaking, and
long vowels will fade away.
- introduction of devoiced laterals ( < /xl/ - Arles might become Alh,
frex.)
- vowel simplification and probably affection as well
Those are the big gestures at the moment.
Aidan
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
1.7. Re: Colloquial French resources
Posted by: "Aidan Grey" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:49 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 4:36 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
As in Standard French: "donne-le-lui". Although actually, Spoken French
> will often use "ça" to render "it" here, so the result would be "donne-lui
> ça" (although written separately, "ça" here is at least a clitic, maybe a
> suffix). The difference with standard French is that if for instance the
> object is separately mentioned as a noun phrase, it will still be indicated
> in the verbal complex, unless it directly follows it (in which case the
> object noun phrase will fall under the verbal accentuation, which
> effectively makes it into an incorporated object).
>
>
Now that's one thing I want to know too! So, if I understand correctly:
Object-phase verb, where object is also indicated on verb as per usual
polypersonal agreement
Verb object-phrase, no indication per polypersonal - its incorporated
Using English:
Bread I-eat-it
vs.
I bread-eat (except, in SF, all the bread is at the end of the
verb(-phrase), not the beginning
Is that right? Given that in SF, it appears almost everything precedes the
verb, having incorporation after the root would be cool...
Thanks,
Aidan
Messages in this topic (42)
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
2a. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Matthew George" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 10:29 am ((PDT))
On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 3:25 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Okay, before this nonsense gets spread even further
It's a very robust finding, highly replicated. If you can't deal with the
facts of reality, don't try to muddy the waters for those who wish to.
>
> Nope. There's just no evidence of that. All the issues that have ever been
> noticed can be easily explained by influences of the environment *after
> birth*.
That is an outright lie.
Matt G.
Messages in this topic (20)
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2b. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Padraic Brown" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 12:15 pm ((PDT))
Roger Mills wrote:
> Just a little side-note: years ago (still in grade school) I
> discovered that I could write backwards in script with my left
> hand, and it was quite legible (though I needed to use a mirror
> to read it, bah)-- much moreso than writing backwards with my
> right hand. I thought that a little odd...... Haven't tried it
> in years, however-- well, I just did, and it looked like a
> drunken chicken had walked across the page.........
I just tried that as well â much more legible than my right handed script.
Though I have to admit to not
quite being able to sort out where to start (or stop!) writing my small As and
Os... I feel like getting lost
at Dupont Circle and not quite knowing where to get off!
For Ray and Charlie:
Yes indeed about St. Hildegard, though I don't know about her being left or
right handed. Maybe our dear
Sally knows. Quite the Hildegard expert her.
And as for the Catholic bit, Ray, I never heard that before your message in
this thread. I'd always known
it as gay, bearded, left handed and Lithuanian. I do believe there must have
been a rather large contingent
of Lithuanian conlagners on the list at the time. Perhaps as many as one. Maybe
even an astonishing pair
of them!
As for the original post:
Even in the World, many philosophers recognise different kinds or domains of
intelligence. Two common
threads being native and acquired, so basically common sense vs. book learning.
To my knowledge, no
one connects handedness with intelligence. I am not certain what the relative
percentages of left v. right
handedness are among Men â could be quite different from *here*. I know Daine
are predominantly
left handed (and for that matter, their whole anatomy is levo-oriented in
general, though some sets of twins are
mirror oriented, one levo-, one dextro-).
As for any real or imagined correlations between handedness and other health
issues, I am sure that the
state of medicine and general "science" in the World can not allow any kind of
definitive yea or nay.
Padraic
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2c. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:00 pm ((PDT))
On 3 September 2013 19:29, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 3:25 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Okay, before this nonsense gets spread even further
>
>
> It's a very robust finding, highly replicated. If you can't deal with the
> facts of reality, don't try to muddy the waters for those who wish to.
>
>
No, sorry, you're the one muddying the waters by spreading such
charlatanism around. There are no such findings that stand up to any kind
of actual scrutiny. You're disappointing me for believing otherwise.
>
> That is an outright lie.
>
>
Stop trying to defend your prejudice.
I will not accept being called a liar on this list. This thread is now
poisoned by nonsense and I will not participate in it any more. Unless I
get an apology, don't expect me to ever reply to one of your posts or try
to correct your mistakes again.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2d. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Matthew George" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:20 pm ((PDT))
On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 5:59 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Unless I get an apology, don't expect me to ever reply to one of your
> posts or try
> to correct your mistakes again.
>
I'll hold you to that. Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets swears never to again
respond to my posts, everyone! Remember!
To sum up: left-handedness is known to be statistically associated with
early neurological insult and developmental abnormality. Association isn't
transitive, and it's perfectly possible to be otherwise completely healthy
and normal while being left-handed. Because of trauma to the nervous system
increasing the chance that a person's dominant side will be reversed,
however, some of the well-known health and longevity associations with
being left-handed are best explained by problems with physiology rather
than as the consequences of unapt design and social stigma. Therefore, it
is entirely likely that overall left-handers can be expected to perform
less well on tests of cognitive performance than right-handers; excluding
cases of neurological insult would probably eliminate this effect, in the
same way that not including people with Down's Syndrome in an attempt to
see if epicanthic folds had any statistical effect on intelligence would.
Matt G.
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2e. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Andrew Schade" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:47 pm ((PDT))
O'Keefe just a lurker, but it seems that this thread has gone beyond a
civil discussion of intellectual topics so it probably needs to just stop,
before tempers rise much more.
On Sep 3, 2013 7:00 PM, "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" <[email protected]>
wrote:
> On 3 September 2013 19:29, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 3:25 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
> > [email protected]> wrote:
> >
> > > Okay, before this nonsense gets spread even further
> >
> >
> > It's a very robust finding, highly replicated. If you can't deal with
> the
> > facts of reality, don't try to muddy the waters for those who wish to.
> >
> >
> No, sorry, you're the one muddying the waters by spreading such
> charlatanism around. There are no such findings that stand up to any kind
> of actual scrutiny. You're disappointing me for believing otherwise.
>
>
> >
> > That is an outright lie.
> >
> >
> Stop trying to defend your prejudice.
>
> I will not accept being called a liar on this list. This thread is now
> poisoned by nonsense and I will not participate in it any more. Unless I
> get an apology, don't expect me to ever reply to one of your posts or try
> to correct your mistakes again.
> --
> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>
> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2f. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Andrew Schade" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:49 pm ((PDT))
Darned autocorrect on my phone.. I meant to start that with "I'm"
On Sep 3, 2013 7:36 PM, "Andrew Schade" <[email protected]> wrote:
> O'Keefe just a lurker, but it seems that this thread has gone beyond a
> civil discussion of intellectual topics so it probably needs to just stop,
> before tempers rise much more.
> On Sep 3, 2013 7:00 PM, "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
>> On 3 September 2013 19:29, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>> > On Mon, Sep 2, 2013 at 3:25 AM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
>> > [email protected]> wrote:
>> >
>> > > Okay, before this nonsense gets spread even further
>> >
>> >
>> > It's a very robust finding, highly replicated. If you can't deal with
>> the
>> > facts of reality, don't try to muddy the waters for those who wish to.
>> >
>> >
>> No, sorry, you're the one muddying the waters by spreading such
>> charlatanism around. There are no such findings that stand up to any kind
>> of actual scrutiny. You're disappointing me for believing otherwise.
>>
>>
>> >
>> > That is an outright lie.
>> >
>> >
>> Stop trying to defend your prejudice.
>>
>> I will not accept being called a liar on this list. This thread is now
>> poisoned by nonsense and I will not participate in it any more. Unless I
>> get an apology, don't expect me to ever reply to one of your posts or try
>> to correct your mistakes again.
>> --
>> Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
>>
>> http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
>> http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
>>
>
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2g. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 3:58 pm ((PDT))
On 4 September 2013 00:20, Matthew George <[email protected]> wrote:
> On Tue, Sep 3, 2013 at 5:59 PM, Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> > Unless I get an apology, don't expect me to ever reply to one of your
> > posts or try
> > to correct your mistakes again.
> >
>
> I'll hold you to that. Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets swears never to again
> respond to my posts, everyone! Remember!
>
>
I never swore anything. I just said not to expect it. Doesn't stop me from
doing it *if I want to*. If you cannot understand such a simple
distinction, no wonder you believe all the nonsense you're spouting.
> To sum up: left-handedness is known to be statistically associated with
> early neurological insult and developmental abnormality. Association isn't
> transitive, and it's perfectly possible to be otherwise completely healthy
> and normal while being left-handed. Because of trauma to the nervous system
> increasing the chance that a person's dominant side will be reversed,
> however, some of the well-known health and longevity associations with
> being left-handed are best explained by problems with physiology rather
> than as the consequences of unapt design and social stigma. Therefore, it
> is entirely likely that overall left-handers can be expected to perform
> less well on tests of cognitive performance than right-handers; excluding
> cases of neurological insult would probably eliminate this effect, in the
> same way that not including people with Down's Syndrome in an attempt to
> see if epicanthic folds had any statistical effect on intelligence would.
>
>
All of this can be summarised with one word: rubbish. There is absolutely
no evidence that neural trauma can lead to changes in laterality
preferentially from right to left, and the effects of social stigma have
been seriously underestimated by researchers. I know no single study that
correctly tried to account for the effects of social stigma and design
preferentially made for right-handed people. None. In each and every one of
them, those are just handwaved. Well sorry, but handwaves are not good
science. Just because nobody can bring themselves to believe that nurture
effects can be so strong, and that prejudice can have such an influence on
people's development doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And as long as nobody
seriously tries to look into those effects, the research on this subject
will simply be unbelievable.
I can't believe I'm having to have this conversation! What is this, the
50's? Are left-handed people the new homosexuals? Do I have to point out
the mass of "research" that showed incontrovertibly that homosexuality was
a disease associated with all kinds of development issues, until
researchers started to let go of their prejudice and realised that all that
research was pure nonsense? Yes, all that peer-reviewed, statistically
significant research? What's the difference here? No, let me answer that
for you: none. There's no difference. All that body of research can be
thrown away, just like the body of research that showed without a doubt
that gays should be put in institutions was thrown away. It's that simple.
And I will keep saying that, until the prejudice is gone.
--
Christophe Grandsire-Koevoets.
http://christophoronomicon.blogspot.com/
http://www.christophoronomicon.nl/
Messages in this topic (20)
________________________________________________________________________
2h. Re: Is It True That Left-Handed People Are Smarter Than Right-Handed
Posted by: "Matthew George" [email protected]
Date: Tue Sep 3, 2013 4:05 pm ((PDT))
A simple internet search - not even delving into journals of medicine or
neurology - quickly demonstrates that you don't have the slightest idea
what you're talking about. And you didn't even have the integrity to keep
to your promise not to respond to me ever again. Tsk tsk.
If you want to make the case that left-handed people are just as bright and
healthy as right-handed ones, your personal behavior is hardly helping.
We now return to the topic of constructed languages.
Matt G.
Messages in this topic (20)
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