Posts by BenWilson
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Sacha, full credit to the prehistoric Maori forefathers for their use of oral history. I do think they'd have got further if they could read and write, though. As in, literally further. Oral history was pretty awesome for sailing around the Pacific, but to sail around the whole world you need maps, rutters, etc.
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Gio
And I don't need to tell you that there is more to life than that, and that subtlety, meandernig arguments, taking them to get to your point whilst attempting to articulate contraty perspectives, are things of some cultural value.
Sure. But clear communication is also incredibly valuable, and doesn't disallow your meanderings. Insisting on meandering does, however, harm clear communication.
Steve
Ben, this just don't seem right, you seem to be conradicting yourself and that is not your style at all. Are you feeling a bit flustered with all this hot weather?
I think I get your point here, that "dropping rules that are essential for disambiguation" is by definition causing ambiguity. Poorly worded, apologies. What I meant to say, and have actually said several times (hence your accusation of contradiction), is that rules that are essential for disambiguation are few and far between. You can disambiguate by avoiding those sentence structures completely. This can be done perfectly easily in comprehensible, grammatical English, and usually should be done, unless you have artistic purposes in mind.
3410
How about when the writer is dead, or otherwise unavailable?
Then we're stuck with their ambiguity, whether they were grammatical or otherwise. I think the standard thing to do is try to find other references to the same ideas by the author.
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Emma, I was actually joking right back at you. Cheers for lightening the mood.
Jack
On the other hand, using a machine makes you much better at using the machine.
Indeed, and by analogy, using writing made us much more effective at using writing and doing things that can be done with writing, which is one hell of a lot more than with oral history (since that also exists concurrently anyway, so there's direct comparison).
the most energy-efficient transport mechanism ever invented
Heh, ain't they just awesome. Walking and running still have their place, though. I bet I can outrun your bike going up a steep hill, on foot. And ain't stairs a bitch for cyclists?
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Yes I am, Gio, and no that's not the way you like it. There's not enough mascarpone for a start.
Hmmm private jokes. The ultimate in communicative clarity.
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Now you're just being silly. If a rule is essential to disambiguation, it's not an arcane rule, it's a useful convention for communication.
In case you hadn't noticed, that is the very point I'm disputing. I'm saying that basically no rule is ever needed for disambiguation. You can disambiguate another way. It's not hard at all to speak clearly. Nor is it hard to ask for clarification of accidental ambiguity, which happens all the time, no matter how many rules you have. To insist that as much information as can possibly be crammed into a sentence should be crammed in, is to make sentences incomprehensible until the 25th reading (like so much academia I've read over the years). Did having to read something 25 times, and look up the grammar rules in a book somehow make the utterer a good communicator? I put it to you that it did not, that it harmed more than it helped. On the flipside, when the meaning was clear, but there is some violation of some rule or other, is that person a poor communicator? I don't think so.
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Refuse to explain. You must make an effort to understand.
Ho ho. Fine then, you will be misunderstood, by your own insistence. Is that they way you like it?
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The more complex the situation, the more complex the language. As the world became excessively complex so did the language. It gets to the point where the language becomes too cumbersome to fit its purpose.
And yet, we all use it just fine.
I disagree with your point about 'dropping rules that are essential to disambiguation' being a no-no. Ambiguity is so easily avoided without arcane rules. This thread has been full of carefully constructed ambiguities, but none of them have convinced of the need for the particular grammar marks given. In almost every case the standard heuristic my high school German teacher taught me, to cope with failing to know the right word or grammar, applies easily. "Sag es anders". Say it differently. It really works. If it's ambiguous, the way you tried to say it, don't rely on grammar to bail you out. Say it plainer. Say it a different way. Say it 2 ways, or 3 ways. Use an analogy, if the idea is complex. It's really easy to use plain language, and really hard to learn the intricacies of arbitrary grammar, so the choice is really a no-brainer.
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I'm with Joe: "oh, really?"
Not sure if this is a diss. Not sure what is meant at all.
Of course something is lost in the process. Something is lost in the process of using a machine of any kind - your natural ability will atrophy. That's not usually a good reason not to use the machine, unless you have atrophied to a dangerously weak level. Walking up stairs instead of using the lift might do you some good, but I really don't think running to the CBD from an outer suburb every day is necessary. Nor is using your memory for things that can be written down. It might have some advantages, but it has a hell of a lot of disadvantages too.
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Without attempting an understanding of how such things may have been done we have no way of even beginning to quantify just how much may have been preserved or lost.
That's exactly the problem with oral history. You only have to try it for yourself for a few days to see the problems with it. The first time you forget something important, you'll be jotting things down again. Otherwise they are lost, utterly lost. Totally gone.
It's interesting to hear about memory techniques though. These are sometimes useful to know. I've used them since childhood to remember things, and it helps. But it's no substitute for the total finality of actually writing it down. In fact, I usually write things down before committing them to memory, as the writing itself also helps the memory. And also, if I don't, things get forgotten, and then they're lost forever.
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Sacha, again, when it's all you've got, it's going to be well developed. But it doesn't have anywhere near the properties of writing to preserve information over time. Maori noticed this immediately, which is part of the reason there are far fewer of these oral-history memory prodigies now. It's also why other people than Maori are able to know about what was in their oral history.
I remember that Socrates was bitter on the idea of writing stuff down because he thought that it led to a degradation of memory. Just as well Plato didn't agree, or we'd never even know what Socrates had to say about that, or anything else.
Stephen, I think we already have that with English. Jargon languages are utterly incomprehensible to outsiders, and most of us use those all the time. But we still have an umbrella language for general conversation. I can talk about general things to any English speaker, no matter how learned they are. It is entirely possible that the whole world could speak that language. I don't know if it will happen, though, my crystal ball is cloudy.
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